Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse Is Coming Later This Month (usatoday.com)

The "super blood wolf moon eclipse" is coming to a sky near you later this month. "The total lunar eclipse will start late on Sunday, Jan. 20 and finish early on Monday, Jan. 21," reports USA Today. Slashdot reader Zorro shares the report: Total lunar eclipse: A total lunar eclipse occurs when the moon and the sun are on exact opposite sides of Earth, according to NASA. When this happens, Earth blocks the sunlight that normally reaches the moon. Instead of that sunlight hitting the moon's surface, Earth's shadow falls on it. Starting at 9:36 p.m. EST Jan. 20, skywatchers will notice a "little notch is taken out of the moon," according to Brian Murphy, director of Indiana's Holcomb Observatory & Planetarium and Butler University professor. At 10:34 p.m., it moves into a partial eclipse, and starting at 11:41 p.m., the full eclipse begins; a maximum eclipse occurs at 12:12 a.m. Jan. 21. The total eclipse ends at 12:44 a.m.

Supermoon: A supermoon occurs when the full moon is at the closest point of its orbit to the Earth (perigee). That makes the moon look extra-close and extra bright -- up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter than a full moon at its farthest point from Earth, known as the apogee, NASA said. This is the first of three supermoons in 2019. The others will be on Feb. 19 and March 21. Of these, the Feb. 19 full moon will be the closest and largest full supermoon of 2019.

"Blood" moon: That is just the reddish color the moon will appear during the total lunar eclipse.

"Wolf" moon: According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, Native Americans called the January full moon the "wolf" moon because it appeared when wolves howled in hunger outside the villages.

Comments

Nice Summary There

[mentil]

This summary brought to you by Wolf-ram Alpha (leader of the search engine pack).

Re:Nice Summary There

[ShanghaiBill]

The summary is not so nice, because it left out an important detail: Where the eclipse will be visible.

The eclipse will be visible throughout North America, most of South America, and just before dawn in Western Europe and Northwest Africa.

Re:Nice Summary There

[SpankiMonki]

The summary is not so nice, because it left out an important detail:

It also links to the wrong "Old Farmer's Almanac" description. Proper link here.

In a lunar eclipse

[rossdee]

There ia no dark side of the moon really
matter of fact its all dark

I feel like I'm playing World of Warcraft!

[cyn1c77]

These names are getting ridiculous.

Re:I feel like I'm playing World of Warcraft!

[nine-times]

It's also just a nonsense fad created by news organizations so they can have a meaningless fluff story that old boring people can get excited about.

Nobody talked about "super moons" until a couple of years ago, when there was (at least according to the news) some alignment of factors that would cause the moon to appear larger than it had in... like... thousands of years. Ok, cool, that's kind of interesting. A lot of people got excited, and reporters just love talking about it.

Suddenly they started talking about the "super moon" every few months. Ok, so it's not an uncommon occurrence, then? It's just a full moon when the moon is near its apogee? That's pretty meaningless. So now they have to invent some other reason why the moon is in some rare alignment. "Oh, it's a super-moon *and* a lunar eclipse!" Ok, I guess that's a little more interesting. "Oh, it's a super-moon *and* Jupiter is in retrograde!" Is that interesting? I don't know. "Oh, it's a super-moon *and* a lunar eclipse *and* a blood moon!" Wait, so a 'blood moon' is when there's an eclipse...? So isn't every super-moon during a lunar eclipse also a blood moon?

Next they'll invent a term like "super-ultra moon" for when there's a super-moon without an eclipse. "It's amazing how bright and white it is when there's no eclipse! It's ultra!" And then they'll start inventing terms for a new moon at apogee, or a waning moon halfway between apogee and perigee, or a waxing moon three-quarters of the way to apogee. That way the weatherman can get all excited every night because, "Oh my god, we now have a semi-ultra micro-waxing extra-gravy moon! That only happens every goddamn month!"

Re:Supermoons are marketing hype

[bruce_the_loon]

Astronomy media sites go for the supermoon, blood moon etc crud to drive clicks. Actual looking-at-the-sky-from-the-top-of-mountains astronomers cringe when we hear these terms.

Re:Supermoons are marketing hype

[religionofpeas]

You should ask Neil deGrasse Tyson for his thoughts on the matter.

Great name for a band

[cascadingstylesheet]

Great name for a band. Yes, the whole thing, "Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse Is Coming Later This Month" :)

Re:It should also be blue.

[HiThere]

A blue moon is the second full moon in a particular month. I don't know why it's called that. They aren't really that rare, but it's a bit less frequent than once in 2 3/4 years.

Now a wolf moon happens once/year, so a blue wolf moon would happen about 1/12th as often..say once in 33 years.

How often a blood moon happens is (as shown above) a matter of argument, but it's a lot less than once per year, so a blue blood wolf moon would happen less than once in a life-time. (With a very liberal definition of "blood moon" I still get a lot less than once in 300 years.)